Starburst (24 page)

A sudden pinpoint of clarity shone in Angélique’s eyes. “Of course, he must speak with Tess Goodwin. Do you remember her?”

Gavin stared bemusedly at her for a moment. “No, should I?”

“She was the person I was speaking to at the reception when you came to talk to me.”

Gavin nodded. “Ah, yes.”

“She works at the International office and she has become a friend of mine. I was going to call her on the telephone last night, but I was frightened the true story would then be put in the newspapers.”

Gavin wrote down the second name in his diary. “Yes, I think you were probably wise not to call her. We won’t involve Tess right now.” He slipped both the diary and the pen into the inside pocket of his jacket. “The only other person I am going to tell about this incident is my doctor, who is a good and trusted friend of mine. I’ll get him to come round to see you and he’ll be able to keep an eye on that very special hand of yours.” He smiled at the young violinist. “Now, I want you to take yourself back to bed and rest well, and don’t worry about a thing. We have it all under control now. If you want to contact me at any time, just speak to Jamie. In the meantime, I’ll make sure he looks after you.”

As he turned to leave, Angélique got up from her chair and moved across the room towards him, putting a hand on his arm. “Gavin?”

“Yes?”

“I was very lucky to meet you at the reception the other night. Thank you for being such a kind friend.”

Gavin grinned broadly at her. “My dear,” he said, “the circumstances are not what I would wish for, but it is indeed a pleasure to be of some assistance to you.”

A
lbert Dessuin sat slumped forward on the chair in his bedroom, his throbbing head cradled in shaking hands, trying desperately to trawl through his befuddled thoughts for some recollection of what had taken place the previous night. Coming round from his alcoholic stupor, he had found himself on the floor of Angélique’s bedroom, but his memory of the events that had led him to being there had been completely wiped out. Evidence only showed that Angélique’s bed linen was rumpled, but not slept in, and the bottle of whisky he must have consumed was in two pieces in the wastepaper basket in his own room.

He tried to convince himself that nothing untoward had happened. He always drank in private—he had never allowed Angélique to see him in an inebriated state—so maybe he had come into her room last night just to check on her, and found she wasn’t there. But if that was the case, where was she now? No, it was more likely he had only been lying there for an hour or two and that Angélique had risen early from her bed and had left the room before he had come in. But then that didn’t add up either. She had not slept in her bed—unless she had made it up herself. And why would she do that in a hotel?

He got to his feet and moved slowly across the room to the bathroom, clutching his arms around his shivering body. A cold shower was what he needed. It always helped to clear his head.

At the top of Lawnmarket in the Old Town, on the fourth floor of the Hub, Tess Goodwin sat at her desk in the International Festival office, listening, open-mouthed with disbelief, to the gravelly male voice at the other end of the telephone line. When she ended the call, neither a word of thanks nor salutation passed her lips. She was too shocked to speak.

Getting to her feet, she moved around the desk and hurried over to the door that led into Sir Alasdair Dreyfuss’s office. His meeting with Sarah Atkinson and the morose director of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to run for another half-hour, but this was something that definitely could not wait. She gave one cursory knock on the door and walked in without waiting for a reply.

Both Alasdair Dreyfuss and Sarah Atkinson looked up at her immediately, inquiry and annoyance in their eyes, while the Estonian turned his corpulent figure around in the armchair with a flatulent squeak of leather.

“I think you might have your time wrong, Tess,” Alasdair Dreyfuss said pointedly, pushing back the cuff of his shirt and consulting his wristwatch. “I said we wouldn’t be free until midday.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Alasdair, but something extremely important has come up, and I wonder if I might just have a couple of minutes with you and Sarah.”

“Can’t it wait, Tess?” Sarah asked tersely, but she was stopped from inquiring further by a hand on her arm from the director, who could tell from the troubled expression on his marketing assistant’s face that something was seriously amiss.

“Valdek, would you please excuse us for two minutes,” he said, getting to his feet. “I do apologize for this.”

The man in the leather armchair gave his consent with a flick of his paw-like hand, and both Alasdair Dreyfuss and Sarah Atkinson followed Tess out of the room and into the open-planned office.

“Now, what’s wrong, Tess?” the director asked, as he closed the door behind him.

“I’ve just had a journalist on the phone who says that Angélique Pascal had an accident last night. She’s cut her hand pretty badly and she’s heading back to France.”

“What?” her two superiors exclaimed in unison.

“He said the story’s going to be on the front page of the
Evening News
tonight, and that he was only telephoning the International office to give us warning so we could find another soloist to take over from Angélique Pascal at tonight’s concert and rearrange our programme for the rest of the festival.”

“Is this genuine information, Tess?” Sarah Atkinson asked. “Who was the journalist?”

“He didn’t give his name, and I’m afraid I didn’t recognize his voice.” Tess shook her head. “I can’t believe this has happened. I spent the whole evening at the reception with her last night. She was going to come out afterwards with Allan and me, but then her manager spirited her away.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of hoax, then,” Sarah Atkinson said, glancing between Tess and the director.

Alasdair Dreyfuss stood staring intently at Tess, lost in thought as he chewed on the nail of a forefinger. “We’ve got to take it as being true,” he said eventually. He turned to his marketing director. “Sarah, you head back to my office and give my humblest apologies to our Estonian friend and finish off the meeting with him, and once you’ve done that, get hold of Julia Parfitt and put her on standby for tonight’s performance.”

“What are you going to do, Alasdair?” Sarah Atkinson asked.

“First off, I’m calling the
Evening News
to see if they’re genuinely going to run with this story, and if so, then I want to get hold of Albert Dessuin and ask him what the hell is going on and why he hasn’t let me know about this sooner.” He took off his spectacles and rubbed a hand across his face. “Dammit, I thought everything was going too smoothly.”

Albert Dessuin stood in the middle of the hotel dining room and scanned the few tables that were still occupied for breakfast. Apprehension gripped at his stomach when he realized Angélique was not there, and he hurried out of the room and down the stairs to the reception area. There was a queue of people shuffling their suitcases forward as they waited to check out, but he bypassed them and went straight up to the desk.

“Excuse me,” he said ungraciously to the young female receptionist who was trying unsuccessfully to swipe a credit card.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she replied with a smile, “but there is a queue. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait your turn.”

“I have not time to wait. You must tell me, have you seen Angélique Pascal this morning?”

The girl looked questioningly at him. “Do you mean the violinist, sir?”

“Of course I mean the violinist. There is no one else of that name staying here, is there?”

Dessuin’s tone made the receptionist’s face colour. “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve only just come on duty, and I certainly haven’t seen her this morning.”

Dessuin snorted angrily. “Well, then, who
was
on duty? I need to speak to them immediately.”

“I’ll see if I can find out, sir.” She smiled apologetically at the couple with whom she was dealing and walked off to the door at the side of the desk. Before entering the room, she turned back to Dessuin. “Can I ask who you are, sir?”

“I’m her manager, Albert Dessuin. Now go and find out if anyone knows where she is. This could be a very serious matter, you know.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Dessuin,” a voice said from the far end of the reception desk.

Albert turned to the other receptionist, who stood with her hand cupped over the mouthpiece of a telephone. The expectant guests in the queue were now regarding him with increasing impatience.

“Yes?”

“There’s a telephone call for you.”

“Enfin!”
Dessuin exclaimed, striding along the desk and causing the man at the front of the queue to take a hurried step back to avoid being forcibly thrust out of the way. “Thank you,” he said to the receptionist, jerking the receiver from her hand and meeting her surprised look with the thinnest crease of a courteous smile. He turned his back on his hostile audience. “Angélique, where the hell are you?” he hissed into the receiver.

“Oh, so
you
obviously don’t know what’s happened, then, do you?” a man’s voice replied.

“Who is this?” Dessuin demanded.

“It’s Alasdair Dreyfuss, Albert.”

For a moment Dessuin stood speechless, his eyes screwed up tight with embarrassment. “Ah, Alasdair—I apologize,” he stuttered out eventually. “I have had rather a bad morning. I did not mean to be so abrupt with you.”

“What on earth is going on, Albert?”

“I’m sorry?”

He heard the director let out a sigh of impatience. “Albert, I have just been on the telephone to the
Evening News
and they are about to run a front-page piece about Angélique Pascal.”

“No—no, that could not be right.”

“It’s very right, I’m afraid, Albert. Seemingly Angélique had an accident last night. She cut her hand quite badly and is flying back to Paris as we speak, which of course means she’ll be unable to fulfill her commitments here at the festival. How on earth did you not know about all this, Albert…Albert?…are you still there?”

The words of the director of the International Festival were enough to start clearing the fog of alcoholic amnesia from Dessuin’s brain. He saw Angélique’s naked form flash into his mind, the raised hand coming down with force on the side of her face. He slowly clenched and unclenched his fist, noticing a tightness in the skin on the back of his fingers which he had not noticed before. “Oh, no,” he murmured, dropping the receiver limply to his side. “Oh, no, what have I done?”

“Albert, for God’s sake, are you still there?” Alasdair Dreyfuss’s distant voice asked again.

Dessuin slowly brought the receiver back to his ear. “Yes,” he replied weakly.

“This has put me in an extremely difficult position, you know, Albert. It’s one thing rearranging the late concerts for next week, but trying to find another soloist at the eleventh hour for the concert tonight…well, it really would have helped if you—”

As if in a trance, Dessuin reached across the desk and dropped the receiver back onto its cradle. He turned and walked across the reception area to one of the chairs that were grouped around a low glass-topped coffee table and sat down. Covering his face with his hands, he began to piece together all the missing scenes of what had taken place the previous night, and then tears of remorse and shame began to flow. “Oh, Angélique,” he sobbed quietly to himself, “I did not mean to hurt you. I never wished to hurt you. Please do not tell anyone I have done this terrible thing.
Please
do not tell.”

He felt a hand press lightly on his shoulder. “Are you all right, sir?” a female voice asked.

Dessuin uncovered his face and looked up at the young receptionist who had left to find out Angélique’s whereabouts. “I am fine, thank you,” he replied in a quavering voice.

“I’m afraid I can’t get hold of any of the receptionists who were on duty last night.”

Dessuin shook his head. “It does not matter now.” He reached for the girl’s hand and held it tight. “Would you do something else for me, please?”

“Of course, sir,” the girl replied in an uncertain voice as she eyed her clamped hand.

“Angélique cannot leave without me. I need to find her.”

“I know, sir,” she replied quietly. “We’re doing everything possible.”

“No, what I mean is, can you please find out for me what flights leave from Edinburgh to Paris today?”

There was relief in the girl’s smile on seeing her chance to get away from the strange Frenchman. “Yes, sir. I’ll get onto the Internet straightaway.”

“Thank you very much,” Dessuin said, releasing her hand. “I will go to my room now.” Pushing himself to his feet, he made his way across to the stairs and began to climb them, moving like an old man, every tread an effort as he dragged himself up on the broad wooden banister rail. Halfway up, his mobile rang and he eagerly glanced at the screen, hoping that it would be Angélique.

It was not. He continued to climb the stairs, allowing the mobile to ring in his hand, not answering until he reached the next floor. He pressed the “receive” button as he walked along the thick-carpeted corridor towards the lift.
“Bonjour, maman. Ça va?”

The other four people in the lift would hardly have known he was engaged in a telephone call had it not been for the fact that he had his mobile held to his ear. He never spoke, but listened with an empty, forlorn expression on his face. When the lift eventually stopped at his floor, he walked out and waited for the doors to close.

“Listen to me, you spoilt old woman. When will you ever consider how I am feeling? You never do. Never,
never!
”

He punched the button to end the call and dropped the mobile into his pocket, and as he walked along the corridor to his room he felt the weight of hopelessness and despair bear down upon him, realizing that he had now succeeded in alienating himself from the only two people who played any part in his sad, pathetic life. Just as his father had done.